by Doug Sweeney | February 20th, 2017

This privately published set of essays is “an experiment,” writes the Rev. Matthew Everhard at the outset of the volume. “Each of the contributors to this collection of essays has provided a unique, thoroughly researched, article pertaining to the life, times, or thought” of the sage of Northampton. And “as each writer comes from a different background and perspective—some of us are pastors, others are still students, still others professional theologians—we each have something unique to say about Edwards” (p. 1). Indeed. This project is a delight. All of its essays are well written. All are penned by ecclesially-oriented Reformed Christians (Presbyterians and Baptists). And all find something important to commend, albeit critically, regarding Edwards’ work.

A product of the innovative Jonathan Edwards Society, a brainchild of this volume’s co-editor, Robert Boss (http://www.jesociety.org/), the book is beautifully designed, replete with 19 different figures (i.e. illustrations), and features a wide range of topics in Edwards studies.

My favorites were the essays by Sarah Boss, Rob’s daughter and a recent college graduate, who contributed a lovely piece on “Edwards and Thoreau: Typologies of Lakes”; and Chris Woznicki, the son of immigrants from Poland and Guatemala, who asks a question based on the work of Robert Jenson (a well-known Lutheran theologian), “Jonathan Edwards: America’s Theologian? A Latino Evaluation of Jonathan Edwards’s Harmartiology.” Other readers will surely find different chapters to love.

“A Glimpse of the Brave New World of Discordant Voices into Which Jonathan Edwards Was Born,” by Jonathan S. Marko (Assistant Professor of Philosophical and Systematic Theology, Cornerstone University)

“Jonathan Edwards and Caring for the Book of Nature,” by Robert Boss (sometime pastor, author, and theologian)

I share the editors’ hope “that this volume will not be alone, but will be followed by other publishing ventures that focus on Edwards, while simultaneously providing a voice to the rising generation of Edwards scholars” (p. 1). If these first fruits of their labors are a reliable indicator, such future publishing ventures will offer an edifying showcase for original work on Edwards by ecclesial theologians.

Many thanks to the members of the Jonathan Edwards Society for this promising publication.